On Friday the 6th of December Global Compact Network Sweden and the Nordic Council of Ministers co-hosted the event “The climate aware generation – is your company ready?” as a part of the COP25 Stockholm Hub. The event focused on what role companies play in climate action and what the youth expects from them in terms of commitment, combining the presence of companies and students/youths.

Introduction

Our Executive Director Maria Collin and Fanny Rehula, Project Officer at Nordic Council of Ministers opened the event and Maria presented the Global Compact initiative and the Swedish network.

The event was moderated by Vide Richter, Sstainability consultant at AFRY.

Presentations and panel discussion

First out was Pernilla Bergmark, Master Researcher, Sustainability at Ericsson and Co-Author of “Exponential Climate Action Roadmap”, who presented the key insights and take aways from the report. She set the context in terms of what companies needs to be achieved in order to reach the Paris Agreement and limiting global warming to 1.5°C. She stressed the need for exponential change instead of incremental change, with the emission budget for 1,5°C running out in just a few at present pace. “The immediate CHALLENGE is not only how to cut emissions 100% by 2050. It is how to cut 50% by 2030.” Pernilla also focused on the need for climate leadership, where businesses need to commit to the 1,5°C targets. Businesses’ impact can also be scaled through partnerships, pledges and commitments.

Next up was Morten Jastrup, Managing Partner at Nordic Sustainability and Author of “Nordic Businesses and the 2030 Agenda: Global Compact Nordic Survey 2019“. Morten gave a summary of the most interesting results from the report which was based on a survey of Global Compact member companies in the Nordics. The result showed that companies think that the SDGs they can impact the most are: climate action, responsible consumption and production and good health and well-being. The biggest challenges in working with the SDGs were identified as: setting relevant KPIs and progress targets, and translating the SDGs to be relevant for the business context.

Morten also talked about that the expectations on business are changing, where businesses’ purpose have gone from focusing on creating shareholder value, to shared value and now to creating “system value”, in which society and environment needs to be taken into account and are seen as preconditions to business’ success.

The last up was Kristoffer Ravnbøl, CEO and Co-founder of Naboskap to talk about the expectations from Nordic youth, based on “Nordic Youth As Sustainable Changemakers : In the transition to sustainable consumption and production” which Kristoffer is the co-Author of. Kristoffer’s main message to the audience was: “Go out into the world to involve and understand the youth”, as this will be crucial to succeed with your company’s sustainability ambitions.

The report was based on a survey of youth (age 13-29) in the Nordic countries, which showed that: 89 % are worried or very worried, 83 % are ready to do more and take action. 93 % find living a sustainable life important, whereas 25 % find it easy to live and consume in a sustainable way.

The presentations was followed by a panel discussion which also included panelists representing students and companies. Alva Jonevret, Vice President Stockholm School of Economics Students for Climate Action talked about why sustainability is so important when choosing a future employer and how more and more students are refusing companies that won’t take climate responsibility. Ulrika Skantze, Head of Talent Acquisition at Cybercom, affirmed that there has been an increase in interest in sustainability among applicants in recent years.

Concluding workshop

The event was concluded with a workshop exercise where groups of company representatives and students/youths discussed expectations on companies regarding climate action. The groups expressed expectations on companies to communicate honestly and transparently, the most important isn’t to be perfect it is to show high ambitions to build trust. Dare to share the bad numbers!

Last week Global Compact Network Sweden (GCNS) arranged a CEO roundtable together with Lise Kingo, CEO & Executive Director of UN Global Compact. The objective of the meeting was to invite leading Swedish CEOs to help shape the UN Global Compact’s strategy and priorities and to discuss how Swedish businesses can enhance their leadership role in the initiative, both locally and globally. The companies that attended were: Mannheimer Swartling, Electrolux, Cybercom, Skanska, Vattenfall, Holmen, SSAB and Volvo Group.

Introduction

Our Executive Director Maria Collin opened and moderated the roundtable. Lise was first out to speak and expressed that she saw “this as an opportunity to accelerate progress towards the necessary tipping points on climate change and other sustainable development priorities, both in Sweden and around the world”. She pointed out that with current trajectory we will not reach the sustainable development goals. She urged that everyone must evaluate what we can do to accelerate our efforts in meeting the goals with soon only ten years to go until 2030.

Presentations and open discussion

The CEOs from Electrolux, Cybercom and Skanska shortly presented their sustainability efforts and vision for the future. The new Ambassador for Sustainable Business at the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs presented his thoughts on how to work together with companies the coming years.

It was expressed that integrating sustainability into the entire business model is the way forward and a competitive edge that create new opportunities. Electrolux has for example launched their “For the better 2030” strategy, which includes supporting the million users of their products every day in eating more sustainable, changing their habits and their clothes to last longer. Cybercom focus on “makers of tomorrow” and “heart in the next generation”. Their view is that a key to deliver on the Paris Agreement is thinking of companies as solution providers, and as of such focusing on the “handprint” of the company with circular economy models, not only on the “footprint”. Skanska measure green revenue and are at 46% today and their target is to be climate neutral 2045. They are confident that they will reach this target but further development within procurement and energy is seen as crucial to meet their goal.

Most of the companies expressed frustration over that many of their projects for a sustainable future are stopped or delayed due to permits that take many years to receive or not updated policies standing in the way. They urged for the Swedish government to update and adjust legislations to support companies in developing sustainable, business models, products and services.

All companies agreed upon that their business is what it is and hence makes most sense to start from there when developing more sustainable models to meet the SDGs. They also suggested a climate focused cooperation across companies and industries.

Takeaways

Lise rounded up with that she would like the Swedish companies that are leading within sustainability in their fields to be more visible globally, to inspire and challenge other countries and companies. Clear actions for UN GC and GCNS was defined to take lead on and report back on during 2020.

GCNS are very pleased with the valuable discussions and takeaways from this CEO roundtable and look forward to more discussions soon.

Welcome to a co-hosted event by the Nordic Council of Ministers and Global Compact Network Sweden! This event is a part of the COP25 Stockholm Hub. The focus of the event is to discuss what role companies play in climate action and what the youth expects from them in terms of commitment. The event will discuss what companies need to do and can do, as well as what companies are currently doing. The event will also talk about what youth expects from companies, as future employees as well as current and future consumers.

Invited to
the event will be a mix of company representatives and students as well as
youth from Nordic countries.

Agenda

Welcome
and introduction

Maria Collin, Executive Director at Global Compact Network Sweden

Fanny Rehula, Project Officer at Nordic Council of Ministers.

The event will be moderated by Vide Richter, Sustainability Consultant at AFRY.

On October 30th Global Compact Network Sweden held a roundtable on Engagement and Dialogue on Decent Work in a Global Context together with the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs at Mannheimer Swartling in Stockholm.

The event
was fully booked with nearly 50 participants representing a wide range of companies,
both from sustainability and procurement as well as lawyers. The focus of the
meeting was Decent work and aimed at exploring how companies can take
actions and develop tools that will have impacts on workers’ lives.

Maria
Collin, Executive Director of GCNS welcomed the members and gave an
introduction to the UN Global Compact and the Swedish network.

The first speaker of the day was Eva Karlsson, CEO of Houdini Sportswear. Eva gave an interesting presentation about Houdini’s overall approach to sustainability as deeply integrated to the core business, with the planetary boundaries, Oxfam’s donut and the SDGs as a basis for the company’s sustainability work.

Eva stated that today, clothes aren’t used, they are consumed. As an example On average, garments are worn 7-10 times in the western world, compare to the global average of 140 times, whereas the average use of Houdini garments is closer to 1300 times. Eva acknowledged that Houdini’s products might be expensive, but pointed out that “it’s expensive to care!”.

From a value chain perspective Eva said that Houdini’s success factors for a sustainable value chain is long-term relations with the suppliers based on trust, transparency and shared values and goals. In terms of environmental impact, Eva asked the question: “Did we lose common sense in business?” and stressed the need for businesses to “reconnect with nature”.

Mari-lou Dupont, Senior Manager, Decent Work and Supply Chain Sustainability at UN Global Compact visited GCNS from the UNGC head office in New York and introduced the UNGC’s Action Platform on Decent Work in Global Supply Chains as well as the Engagement Toolkit on Decent Work.﻿

The rationale behind the action platform is that Global Supply chains are of the most important levers for business to create positive impact in the world, with an estimated 80% of global trade passing through them annually. The action platform has been running for two years and is intended to provide members a way to engage on a more international level.

Furthermore, Mari-Lou presented the Engagement Toolkit for Responsible Procurement as the “masterpiece” of the action platform. The toolkit will be launched in February 2020 and made publicly available. It is intended to enable procurement staff and their suppliers to take action for improved conditions for workers in supply chains, by increasing understanding and facilitating dialogue with suppliers.

The
participant also got to share their view on the biggest risks and challenges when
it comes to Decent Work, which included issues such as modern slavery, child
labour, excessive overtime and working with suppliers further upstream rather
than 1st tier supplier. A
key take away from the presentation was the importance of integrating Decent
Work in procurement decisions.

Next the participants got to listen to how Volvo Cars work with Decent Work in their supply chain. As one of the founding companies of UN Global Compact, Volvo has also been active in the Decent Work Action Platform from the start. Pernilla Eriksson, Procurement Sustainability Manager and Anna-Maria Ericsson, Labour Affairs Expert held gave a very concrete insight into Volvo’s work.

Volvo engage in the action platform since the company realise that a great part of the company’s impact comes from the supply chain, as 70 % of added value comes from external suppliers.

As part of Volvo’s work with Decent Work, they have identified supplier stakeholders with exposure to supply chain challenges and initiated engagement forums over a 2 year period where the focus is on dialogue.

Pernilla and Anna-Maria gave examples of very practical ways to engage the issues together with their suppliers. Volvo has initiated two active engagement forums; “Grievance channels”, which aims to improve ways to report irregularities, and a forum focusing on mitigating risks of forced labour.

The event also included an interactive session where the participants got to discuss and try to resolve different dilemmas around Decent Work, which resulted in many interesting perspectives and ideas around the table.

The seminar was concluded with a presentation of UN Global Compact
overarching strategies and values proposition by Thorin Schriber, Participant
Engagement Manager from the UN Global Compact Office in New York. Thorin set
the scene by showing examples of how sustainability is becoming a prerequisite for
long-term success for companies. He explained UNGC’s mission to spread and
implement the Ten Principles and the SDGs and gave examples of how new sectors use
the Ten Principles: e.g. Blackrock, one of the world’s largest asset managers
has started to use the Ten Principles to screen there assets.

UNGC has identified companies’ need for tools and education to advance their work which is provided through the Academy. Going forward, UNGC will continue to build trust and promote transparency, support in meeting the SDG’s and work to shape the global agenda. In 2020, UNGC’s biggest focus will be on gender equality and closing the gender gap.

Thorin closed the event by emphasising on the importance of leaderships, giving Greta Thunberg’s speech at UN General Assembly as an example witnessed first hand. “Everything is about leadership”.

Circular economy, different angles in the value chainCase 1 – Full life-cycle of the equipment, long lifetime, service- and recyclability, scrap materials & new business opportunitiesKaisa Jungman, Director, Sustainable Business Development, Metso Corporatain

Sustainable Finance Architecture – what should business know about it?Aila Aha, Executive Advisor on Sustainability, Nordea and Member of European Commissions’s Technical Expert Group on Sustainable Finance

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